The week two class was focused on the immersive cinema aspect of the course (which is the part of the course I am most interested in).

We traced a history of immersion in art, using techniques like perspective and depth perception through stereoscopy to further immerse viewers. Successful techniques are those which more accurately recreate what the human eye perceives. Using vanishing points in drawing simulates the perspective that the human eye or a camera sees.

3D stereoscopy simulates depth perception to add another layer of realism to visual imagery. I think sound would add an extra something to an immersive experience, but it is an often overlooked form and we may not have the time to experiment or go in depth with it in this course.

We also had a brief walkthrough of the Unity environment from a game development perspective, although I can see how this could easily be adapted to an immersive environment. I’m not exactly sure how we would go about projection mapping the Unity scene on to a 180 degree cylinder section though; it seems like something you would need Unity Pro for. The interface is not too difficult if you have ever used Maya, and having some experience in C# development made the code side of things look familiar.

This is the third time I’ve been on a tour of the iCinema facility at UNSW, so I have seen most of the demonstrations before. There was a new demonstration that I had not seen before and I was impressed by, but unfortunately my memory has failed me and I can’t remember what it was. What a coincidence. If only I had blogged about it immediately or had some kind of logging device to aid my memory.